Who has had a incomplete charge

What does this post mean? I'm confused.

Tom

 

I have not had a partial charge so far (11 days so far).
Car is in a garage although it has been charged outside three times.
Temperatures in the 60s and 70s for most of that time, 80s the first few days.

 

You know from the other thread that I've had two, and I'm interested in hearing Hymotion's reply.

 

got a call back from A123. I'll post what I know here and in the other thread that mentions incomplete charges.

They purchase the charger component.
They have had some customers with incomplete charges that appear to be due to using an extension cord with too small a gauge or too long a run.
The issue of heat as a factor has not come up before.
The system is designed so that heat should not be a factor.

In my case, I already noticed a 10V drop at the wall socket when I charge (which is more than I ought to get, in theory, based on 14 gauge house wiring.) And I'm using a 25' 14 gauge cord on top of that.

My guess, as of this moment, is that heat = AC use = momentary voltage drops, and that my partial charge issue is the same as the partial charge issue for people who used narrow-gauge or long extension cords. (Too small or too long a cord gives too much voltage drop.)

Bottom line: at this point, I think it's a low voltage issue for me. The voltage drop at the wall socket is already worrisome. My electrical service is probably right at the margin of providing continuous adequate voltage. I'm going to get/make a shorter 10-gauge cord, and I'm considering running a dedicated 12 or 10 gauge line directly back to the electrical service entrance, and give the car its own dedicated circuit. But if a 10 gauge cord does the trick, I'm not going to bother with that.

 

I see about a 6-8 volt drop during my charging. Normal voltage is around 122V and drops to the 114V area when charging.

I don't know what gauge my 25ft cord is but I know its a big thick heavy one. Its not one of the household extension cords. I'll have to check it when I get home. I think the Watts Up? meter uses the same gauge as my cable or maybe one size smaller. You can see the size of it in my video I posted in my Hymotion review topic.

I do know out of all the charges I have gone through so far the only thing that changed on my "partial charges" was the heat.

 

My 25ft extension cord is 12 gauge and the Watts Up? meter is 14 gauge. The wire running from the circuit breaker is 14 gauge and is about a 100ft run to the garage.

It was pretty hot today but not as hot as when it was when I got a partial charge. I have tomorrow off but I have to take my car the dealership to see about getting my headlights fixed. So I don't know if I will get to see a partial charge or not and if I do I will hold out for as long as I can to see if it starts to recharge on its own.

 

You should be able to find it at Home Depot. I bought some 4 conductor 8 gauge stranded their a while back, they called it appliance cord I think. Was building a temporary extension cord to run my range off my dryer outlet (don't ask)

If you are concerned about your in-wall losses, I would definitely try to oversize your extension cord. 10 would probably be sufficient for that. The line conditioner idea is a pretty good one, here's an example:
LCR2400 - Line Conditioner - Automatic voltage regulation with surge protection
Provides up to 20A at 120V for inputs as low as 87V. Street price looks to be about $300.

If you have access to the wires anywhere along your in wall run (attic maybe?) I'd just be sure they aren't heating up causing a possible fire hazard. You're probably ok, but those voltage drops are a little surprising. Probably worth checking out though before you chose to go any route other than upgrading your in wall wiring.

FWIW, I know nothing about Hymotion's system, but its not at all unreasonable to think that high temperatures could exacerbate a marginal input voltage situation.

Rob

 

Yeah, at this point, with the car charging OK, the house wiring is my main concern. The voltage drop is about twice what I ought to get, based on that length of 14 gauge wire. If that's just the cumulative effect of a bunch of 50-year-old splices in the circuit, no problem. If it's one bad connection in that circuit, it's like sticking a 50 watt incandescent inside a metal junction box somewhere in my house walls, and letting that run a few hours every night (extra 5v drop x 10A current = 50W). That's a little worrisome.

I'm trying to figure out what to do, if anything. The easy answer is "hire an electrician", but I want to understand what's going on. If I have a problem in this circuit, I may have it in others. I think I'll test the voltage drop all along the circuit (with a space heater and the kill-a-watt), see if it jumps at any point.

A line conditioner is a reasonable option, except that I'm worried about the house wiring. To cover the losses within the conditioner itself, plus charge the car, I'd end up drawing even more amps through the house wiring. So I'm not going there until I figure out if I have a problem with the wiring.

On the 10 gauge cord, I finally thought to run that through a voltage drop calculator. It only knocks 0.4V off the total voltage drop, compared to 12 gauge. Now that doesn't seem worth it, I'll just use off-the-shelf 12 ga cord.

Voltage Drop Calculator

On the other hand, A123's minimum extension cord recommendation (50' 12ga or 25' 14ga) amounts to avoiding an additional 1.1V drop in the cord (ie, between 50' 14ga and 50' 12ga) So maybe it is that sensitive.

 

Another hot day, and another partial charge. Yesterday, by the end of the day, the car was hot enough that it would not go into EV mode. And, the Hymotion battery would not fully charge.

I Had to unplug and replug twice to get the battery to charge fully.

Maybe its a combination of heat plus low line voltage, but it certainly seems like heat is the trigger.

At this point, I am not a happy customer. Yes, the mileage is good -- right now we're at just over 90 mpg and rising, having gone less than 200 miles with the Hymotion battery installed. But for $11K, it ought to work properly under reasonable real-world conditions. My house is wired according to code and I'm using a big enough extension cord. But I live in Virginia, and that car is going to be hot quite a bit of the time.

At this point, until I settle this, I've decided to keep the car outside when recharging it. If it's getting too hot to charge properly, I don't want to charge it inside the garage.

 

Hey, just an FYI - I just spoke with Erin at A123 this morning about my install date and happened to mention the issue raised by this thread. She told me that there were some problem components associated with some of the very first L5 packs that contributed to the partial-charge problem. She has already replaced one and said that all systems going to install centers from this time forward shouldn't have any problems. She also said that the unit is covered by warranty so if anyone else is experiencing this problem they'll fix/replace it.

She also explained they don't supply an extension cord but any off-the-shelf 25' orange 14-gage you can find at Home Depot or similar will work just fine. There shouldn't be any charging problems due to temperature from what she said.

 

We got our L5 on 9/19 and have not had any incomplete charges. We did get a new 25 ft, 14 gauge extension cord for recharging. The car is parked inside and we have had moderate weather lately. We live in the Cleveland area and it will be interesting to see what happens when the weather changes.